Merge (2020)
Record Store Day lost its sizzle for me several years ago. At this point there's very little of interest to me in the never ending sea of rereleased, fifteen dollar 7"s from bands like Toto. What started out as a cool way for independent record stores to get a few exclusives to drive people to the stores, quickly turned into a cash grab with overpriced and generally shitty releases. That's not to say there aren't a few pieces of gold still out there. Without fail there's always at least one release every year that I want and this year it was an Archers of Loaf 7". This is the only record I bought this record store day, making it a haul of 1 record. But it's a good one and I want to thank my buddy Scott for pointing me in the direction of an online store that was carrying it.
This was actually supposed to be the first new Archers single in twenty some odd years, but the pandemic pushing Record Store Day around means that it's now the second, with "Talking Over Talk" beating it to the punch. Also due to the pandemic, I was just able to buy this online. The record store I usually go to didn't seem to have the greatest policies for safety and social distancing, so I opted to hit refresh a couple hundred times from my computer instead.
As far as the songs go, I think that "Raleigh Days" is the best of the four that have been released so far. It has an upbeat and driving rhythm with great guitar work and Eric Bachman's harsh, but wonderfully melodic vocals. It takes me back to the sort of songs they were doing when Vee Vee came out. And any chance to hear Archers blasting out noisy pop songs is a real treat for me.
The B side on this one is a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man." It's actually a really good version of the song. Archers do an excellent job of making the song their own musically. But the vocal melody of the original is just so iconic, it's hard to make that sound like anything other than just a cover song. It's a fun listen but I'm more interested in new Archers of Loaf songs. I hope I get to hear more soon.
Archer of Loaf - Raleigh Days 7":
https://archersofloaf.bandcamp.com/album/raleigh-days-b-w-street-fighting-man
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